Deliver Me From Evil (23 page)

After the barge trip we went back to living at the farm. The whole place was like a building site, a total tip. There would be a burst of activity for a few days, such as some plastering, then it would stop and we’d be left with the mess. Eunice was living now in the caravan. Sarah was still confined to her wheelchair (although she could have walked) and Robert was hobbling but mobile, and they had been given rooms. Thomas and I were put on the dirty, cold floor, wherever we could find a space, and were back to sleeping in a folded-over quilt and an ancient sofa cushion.

These days, when Eunice tried to beat me, I always tried to get her back in some subtle way, by catching her with my nail or my teeth, or even trying to trip her up or hurt her back I was gradually coming to the boil. I didn’t want to hurt her badly, but I was sick of her random violence, and wanted to be free of her constant psychological domination.

One day, Sarah and I put a Ritalin pill in Eunice’s tea to see what would happen. We stirred it round till it melted. We were terrified about what would happen if she tasted it and twigged what we were doing, but luckily, she didn’t. She just got sleepy and said, uncharacteristically, ‘Oh, I feel a bit tired today.’ It was a real relief seeing her nod off in her chair, something she almost never did. It gave us a little peace for a while, enabling us to go off and listen to the radio or even sneak a look at a teen magazine like ordinary teenagers (we’d smuggled it into the house), without her beady eye on us.

Meanwhile, I kept saying I wanted to leave and Eunice kept ignoring me. I nagged and nagged as I felt I would explode otherwise; I think she must have got fed up with it because one day, when we were in the kitchen together and I was feeding Jet while she was making some tea, she said, ‘You’ll be leaving tomorrow, so you better get yourself sorted.’

I nearly fell over with shock. What did she mean? Where was I going?

‘Whereto?’

‘You want to leave, you can leave,’ was all she said, mysteriously. ‘Be ready by nine in the morning – I’ll drive you.’ Then she walked out of the kitchen and I knew better than to ask any more.

I rushed upstairs and found some clothes and other stuff. I had virtually no possessions – no smart bag or new clothes, no special pieces of jewellery (my gold heart with the rose was lost by then), souvenirs or piggy-bank savings. I didn’t have a suitcase, so I stuffed my few belongings into a black plastic bag.

I was going. I was being freed.

Eunice told me not to say anything, that the other children weren’t to know I was going, which meant I couldn’t say goodbye. I had no mobile phone, no money. I hadn’t really thought through the practicalities at all. Would Eunice give me help? I had no idea. I knew I’d have to get a job, but I’d do anything to survive.

The next day, Eunice told Thomas and Robert that we were taking Sarah for her hospital appointment. She took Sarah out to the minivan she’d bought while I stood awkwardly with the two boys, wanting to say something but not knowing how to express any warm emotions. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ was all I could muster as I climbed into the van and went through the farm’s five-bar gate for the last time. I looked back and waved at Thomas and Robert, then the farm disappeared as the car drove round the bend and I set off for my new life, wherever it was to be.

We drove in silence for about fifteen minutes, while I took in the enormity of my leaving. Eunice was intent on driving, but I was feeling a mixture of complete terror and excitement in equal measure.

‘I’m taking you to Bristol,’ Eunice piped up suddenly.

‘Bristol? I don’t know Bristol? Why not Cheltenham or Tewkesbury?’

I seldom questioned her decisions, so this felt new. She was evasive though.

‘You’ll be in a youth hostel. I’ll pay your rent for a month.’

Eunice carried on driving. I said nothing while I took this in. Why Bristol? Clearly Eunice didn’t want me to be in Cheltenham, because of the possibility of meeting my parents, or in Tewkesbury, because other people would twig she’d let me leave home. Above all, she must have been terrified that I would spill the beans about her cruel regime.

You’ll be back after that, tail between your legs.’

Ah, so that was it. Eunice thought I wouldn’t survive, that I would come running back immediately. On the one hand, Bristol was big enough and far enough away for her to feel I would simply ‘disappear’, I suppose. Maybe she knew about the hostel from her legitimate fostering days, who knows? On the other hand, she expected me to fail. I guess she thought I’d be writing to her, begging her to bring me ‘home’ within a week. Eunice underestimated how determined I was, even though I was not yet seventeen, and how desperate I was to get away from her at all costs. I would do anything to survive. My freedom was worth fighting for at this point.

Eunice parked and, leaving Sarah in the minivan, walked me to the Waterfront Youth Hostel in central Bristol, where she dumped me: I was deposited like an unwanted package. The hostel faced out towards the canal and new cafes and bars. There was a strange bridge in front of it, with big sculptures, and the place was buzzing with activity. It was all very odd and new to me. We stood awkwardly at the reception, where Eunice paid my first months rent for a single room on the first floor. The place was brightly lit and clean and the staff were friendly. I was surrounded by young people coming and going, sitting and chatting on the bright green chairs or getting snacks out of the vending machines. I didn’t feel part of this busy world and I’m sure we must have looked a strange, sombre pair standing glumly at the desk together.

Eunice turned and walked out the door. I followed her, automatically. She stood outside on the cobbles for a moment. I didn’t know whether to hug her or not – she was never affectionate at the best of times. I suddenly felt extremely alone. But I couldn’t show Eunice that, as I didn’t want to give her any advantage. I didn’t want her to ‘win. I was going to get through this, no matter what. I’d endured the most unspeakable cruelty at her hands and so, I suppose, I was pretty strong inside at that moment, albeit scared.

‘Goodbye,’ said Eunice. She looked at me coolly for a moment. There would be no words of encouragement, no cuddle or anything like that. ‘This will start you off.’ She handed me three pounds in coins.

I looked at the coins. That wouldn’t go very far. I’d have to be clever.

‘Goodbye then,’ was all I said in response.

Eunice turned and walked in her frumpy clothes along the cobbles, then disappeared around the corner.

I was alone. Freedom. It was scary and exciting all at once.

I turned and looked at the canal, twinkling in the morn ing light. A boat was bobbing in its mooring near by and I could hear laughter. Two gulls flew overhead, squawking loudly, and I followed their path upstream and imagined it leading to the open sea: I’d worked out Bristol was a port from the signs in the hostel.

Although it was summer, it was a grey day and a bit nippy, so I turned back towards the glass door and went inside. This was my new home, and I had to make it work.

However, I was not prepared, in any way at all, for beginning my adult life alone. The three pounds was hardly enough for a bus fare and in terms of food I only had a bag of noodles, hastily pulled out of the larder. No vegetables, fruit, crockery or utensils to cook with. I did have an envelope in my coat pocket though and when I got to my tiny, white room, which had just a narrow bed, chair and table in it, I opened it and found a card signed from ‘Mummy’. The red card was falsely jolly, stating ‘You’re leaving home’ and ‘Good luck. So that was it. Goodbye to all that. As I sat on the edge of my hard bed, I wondered what on earth I was supposed to do next.

The Waterfront Hostel was in a fairly rough area. In the daytime it was OK, with students and tourists bustling about, but at night it was full of prostitutes, drug addicts, pimps, illegal immigrants, the footloose, the homeless, and drunken revellers. At the time, I had absolutely no idea where I was at all. I’d never been out for day trips on my own, I hadn’t even been to Tewkesbury or Cheltenham under my own steam, so I was completely naive about city life. I watched the young people coming and going, dressed in skimpy outfits – clothes the like of which I’d never seen in real life – and they all seemed to be heading for nearby clubs and pubs. The Jehovah’s Witnesses frowned on all this worldly, sexy stuff, and it had been deeply ingrained in me that going out drinking and wearing ‘tarty’ clothes was immoral, so I was intrigued by the apparent freedom and confidence of all the young people I saw out on the streets, clearly having a good time.

I realized, very quickly, that I would have to help myself entirely as no one else was there to help me. Eunice had let me loose in the world without any money to back me up. She didn’t help me to set up a bank or savings account, no little nest egg, not even £50 tucked into my farewell card to get me started. Now that I’m a mother myself, I’m sure I would never, ever let a very naive seventeen-year-old go out into the world alone in those circumstances. I would make sure they had food in the fridge, basic utensils and equipment and enough money to live on for, say, six months. I would also have made sure they had contacts, a mobile phone, someone to call if they felt scared or lonely. The fact that I was simply taken to a big city and dumped there by Eunice is yet another example of how little she cared about me and how much she thought I was worth – that is, nothing. She must have told herself I was still ‘evil’ and would ‘come to no good’ and so abandoned me with the lowest of the low to struggle alone.

The first few days were very weird. I hardly dared to go out. I hid in my room, feeling very frightened. I didn’t know how to talk to people or who to trust, how to get a bus or how to negotiate myself around the strange world I found myself in. It was really tough, but I had no alternative other than to deal with it.

I started talking to people in the hostel and met a girl called Beany. She was a young, streetwise, black seventeen-year-old with dreadlocks who had run away from home. She helped me to find my way around and we’re still friends today.

By chance, I spoke to a helpful man who knew about something called Connexions, an organization for young, homeless people in Bristol. I was very lucky to meet him and I eventually found my way there somehow and they promised to help me find a job and more suitable accommodation. I had to borrow the bus fare back to the hostel from them as I had no other means of getting any money at this time.

I found getting on buses, working out where I was and understanding how to got from A to B quite daunting, but I managed it, after a few false starts. I was told by the people at Connexions that I had to ‘sign on, which was very complicated, involving a lot of form-filling and hanging around in bleak-looking buildings.

I felt very scared at night as I got into bed, not really knowing where I was, listening out to the strange night sounds in the hostel – someone would be laughing somewhere, someone else was shouting, there were always voices gabbling in some unknown language or other – and, beyond that, the constant sound of traffic outside and a base beat thudding somewhere in the distance.

Luckily I’d been trained to starve, so in those first few hungry days I was able to survive on one plate of plain noodles a day cooked in a grotty communal kitchen. I drank water to fill up – another survival trick from my childhood.

One night about a week after I’d got to the hostel, I decided – probably foolishly, looking back – to go out and explore the area. Every evening I’d seen all the young people drifting towards the numerous clubs on the waterfront, all dressed up to the nines. They were like youthful Pied Pipers to me. I’d always loved music and when Eunice had gone out or wasn’t looking I had sometimes managed to sneak a quick dance to the mini-radio, wearing headphones so no one else could hear. I had always loved moving my body to the freedom of a beat, and, because I’d been so sensually deprived, dancing seemed a really fantastic thing to do. Whenever I put music on and started to dance I would come alive and feel so completely happy in my body released from the troubles of my mind, that I’d feel connected with my distant Romany and Irish roots. Nowadays, I still love to dance. I am fascinated by all things spiritual, and enjoy losing myself in ecstatic trance music. I’m sure that music, rhythm and dance are in my blood, rather than any evil.

The beats of the nightclubs were calling to me as I got dressed up in a hand-me-down sequinned mini skirt, black top and platform shoes. I put make-up on for the first time to go out (I’d bought some on one of our illicit shopping trips in Pershore and had experimented putting it on in secret). Finally, I responded to the lure of the music by venturing out, feeling very shy and vulnerable, but hugely curious and excited. I followed the flow of young people, who were giggling and chatting excitedly as they wove their way towards the clubs. I met some Chinese girls, who were from my hostel, who told me where to go. Around 9 o’clock I found myself in the Chicago Rock Café, where there was free entry up until 9.30, a bar and a tiny dance floor.

I made a beeline for the floor and let myself go, dancing away to my heart’s delight. I loved every minute of it. The throbbing beat pulsed through my body, I was hot with sweat and with each move I felt freer and freer and freer, more liberated than I’d ever felt in the whole of my life. It was a wonderful sensation – utterly euphoric and exhilarating, and better than anything I could have imagined.
I was free! This was me, living my life, finally. I would make it alone. I would. I could.